Not only is sugar farming highly destructive to the environment, it is also more deadly (150,000+ deaths/year) the combined deaths due to cocaine use (< 50,000/year) and organized crime (~100,000/year). Since the deaths are mostly of poor people, few care in governments.
THE DEADLY/MURDEROUS NATURE OF SUGAR FARMING
Ergonomic evaluation of occupational health hazards of farmers involved in sugarcane cultivation
- Agriculture Association of Textile Chemical and Critical Reviews Journal, January 2025
"About 170,000 sugarcane workers are killed annually around the world due to exposure to hazards. Sugarcane farmers are at a very high risk for fatal and non-fatal injuries." "Sugarcane workers have a high level of occupational accidents and they are exposed to high toxicity of pesticides and most of the workers suffer from cough and chest pain." "Sugar cane cutters live with modern work methods, but in slavery-like conditions."
Health burden of sugarcane burning on agricultural workers and nearby communities
- Inhalation Toxicology, 05 December 2023
Uncovering the violent/deadly history of the Canadian sugar industry
- The Conversation, 16 March 2023
Sugarcane cutting work, and the risks and health effects
- Revista Saude Publica, 23 August 2018
The 'silent massacre' killing the sugarcane workers of El Salvador
- PBS, 28 February 2018
At least 20,000 people - most of them young agricultural workers - have died from chronic kidney disease in Nicaragua since it first came to the notice of doctors in the late 1990s.
- The Guardian, 19 March 2017
Sugar: the most evil molecule
- Science History Institute, 12 October 2022
Hitler used Zyklon B to kill millions of Jewish people during World War II. Zyklon B is based on the poisonous cyanide molecule. Cyanide can be produced by heating schlempe in a closed vessel. Schlempe is a slimy goop left over after extracting sugar from sugar beets - one reason why the Nazis heavily subsidized the German sugar-beet industry. All sorts of ways that sugar kills.
WHy are the sugar cane harvesters dying in Brazil?
- Saude Sociedade, December 2006